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MY POINT OF VIEW - Karen Bass has presided over one of the most visible urban failures in America. Los Angeles, under her watch, has become dirtier, more crime-ridden, packed with more tent encampments, more fentanyl zombies shuffling through neighborhoods, worse roads, and skyrocketing unaffordability. Here is the harsh truth on her worst statements and actions—no excuses, no spin.
Worst Thing She Ever Said: “It Depends” on Noncitizen Voting.
In a 2026 mayoral debate, when asked point-blank whether noncitizens should vote in local elections, Bass replied: “It depends. It’s not a yes or no.” She then mumbled about legal residents and how some cities do it.
This single answer reveals everything. As mayor of America’s second-largest city, she cannot bring herself to say that voting should be reserved for American citizens. In a sanctuary city already straining under massive illegal immigration, homelessness, and crime, she signaled openness to diluting the votes of actual residents and taxpayers. This wasn’t a gaffe — it was a window into her ideology: borders, citizenship, and American sovereignty are negotiable. Real Angelenos watching their neighborhoods deteriorate heard a leader who prioritizes noncitizens over citizens. It was one of the most outlandish, tone-deaf things any big-city mayor has said in modern memory.
Other Disgraceful Statements
- She repeatedly blamed riots, looting of Apple and Nike stores, and street chaos on the “White House” and called federal immigration enforcement a “national experiment” to test power over cities.
- She claimed rebuilding after the deadly 2025 Palisades Fire was moving at “lightning speed” and “one of the fastest in California history.” Karen claims climate change caused the fire, while it was arson and empty reservoirs that made a brush fire a national disaster.
- She insisted Los Angeles “is not in decline” while deficits ballooned and streets crumbled.
- She touted “historic decreases” in street homelessness while audits showed billions untracked and encampments everywhere.
- She downplayed her absence in Ghana during the start of the Palisades Fire, calling it a “mistake” but shifting blame to others.
“How many people who are unhoused that you meet have no teeth at all? They don’t have teeth. Why? Because meth rots your teeth. YOU CAN’T SUCCEED WITHOUT TEETH! So there needs to be comprehensive healthcare provided to people.”
This is peak Karen, a mayor who has overseen billions wasted on failed programs, now lecturing that meth addicts need taxpayer-funded dental work as the key to success. While Los Angeles drowns in open drug use, tents, and zombies on the streets, she focuses on teeth rather than aggressive enforcement, mandatory treatment, or clearing encampments. It perfectly sums up her failed philosophy: more government “comprehensive healthcare,” more spending, more excuses — never addressing the root causes of addiction, crime, and personal responsibility that are destroying the city.
Pathetic Climate Change Excuse for the Palisades Fire Disaster Los Angeles Democrat Mayor Karen Bass is getting absolutely torched for blaming “climate change” for her failed response to the Palisades fire tragedy.
“Now, given climate change, we have to expect things…we would have never imagined.”
Classic Karen: Cut LAFD funding and staffing, watch critical reservoirs sit empty and hydrants run completely dry while people lost everything, then blame the weather instead of her own incompetence. Democrats never take responsibility. They just make excuses. This pathetic deflection came after she was out of the country during the start of the fire despite prior extreme wind warnings. It perfectly captures her entire approach: deny, deflect, and blame anything except her own leadership failures and misplaced priorities.
Worst Things She Has Done
1. Ghana Trip. During the Palisades Fire, as extreme wind warnings screamed danger and fire officials prepared, Bass was halfway around the world in Ghana for a presidential inauguration. She ignored the red-flag warnings. The fire killed people, destroyed thousands of homes, and exposed catastrophic failures in preparedness. Real leadership stays home during known high-risk periods. She didn’t. This single decision defines dereliction of duty.
2. Appointing Incompetent or Compromised Leadership. She appointed Janisse Quiñones as LADWP CEO, with a nearly $750,000 salary. During the fire, a massive reservoir sat empty, and hundreds of hydrants ran dry. Quiñones later left amid lawsuits.
Her Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, Brian K. Williams, made a fake bomb threat to City Hall. He pleaded guilty. This is who she put in charge of keeping Los Angeles safe.
3. Billions in Homelessness Spending with Nothing to Show. Bass declared a homelessness emergency and poured hundreds of millions — part of billions overall — into LAHSA and NGOs. Court-ordered audits revealed catastrophic mismanagement, untracked funds, weak controls, and vulnerability to fraud. The former LAHSA CEO earned ~$430k while her husband’s nonprofit received lucrative contracts.
Meanwhile, streets are filled with more tents, more human waste, more needles, and more dead bodies. “Harm reduction” meant handing out clean needles and crack pipes — government-sponsored encouragement of addiction while overdose deaths exploded. The “homeless industrial complex” got rich; the streets got worse. This isn’t compassion — it’s malpractice at scale.
4. Sanctuary Policies Defying Federal Law. She strengthened sanctuary rules and resisted federal enforcement. This led to DOJ lawsuits alleging violations of the Supremacy Clause. While she cried “police state,” real Angelenos dealt with the consequences: more strain on services, longer wait times in emergency rooms, more expensive housing, and less public safety.
5. Budget Deficits and Union-First Priorities. Inherited surpluses were turned into nearly $1 billion in deficits. She cut deals with powerful unions while core services — road repair, street cleaning, and basic maintenance — collapsed. Potholes, graffiti, broken lights, and trash became the new normal.
6. Fire Preparedness Collapse. Empty reservoirs, broken hydrants, staffing shortages, and an alleged softening of the after-action report to protect the city from liability. Firefighters warned of problems. Bass’s administration prioritized social spending and ideology over basic infrastructure readiness in fire country.
7. Visible Decay of Essential Services: Roads deteriorated. Encampments proliferated. Drug zombies were openly used in broad daylight. Illegal dumping and graffiti went unaddressed. Businesses and residents fled or locked themselves inside. Quality of life cratered for working- and middle-class Angelenos — the people who actually pay taxes.
8. DEI and Ideology Over Competence Key appointments emphasized diversity metrics while competence in critical roles (water, fire, public safety) suffered. Results spoke louder than rhetoric: failures in the areas that matter most when disaster strikes.
Karen Bass’s words reveal a politician who cannot speak truthfully about citizenship, accountability, or reality. From “It depends” on noncitizen voting, to blaming the White House for riots, to climate change excuses for fire failures, to claiming meth addicts just need better teeth and “comprehensive healthcare,” her rhetoric is a masterclass in deflection and denial.
Her deeds reveal a leader who put international travel, high-paid cronies, union deals, ideological experiments, massive taxpayer-funded NGOs, and pathetic excuses ahead of the basic duties of city government: clean streets, safe neighborhoods, functioning infrastructure, and fiscal sanity. Her record is DEI cronies first, meritocracy last. All of us, except maybe Magic Johnson, are paying the price.
Los Angeles under Bass became a cautionary tale: more spending, more programs, more rhetoric about “progress,” yet dirtier streets, more crime, more tents, more addiction, worse services, and declining livability. Real people walking these streets every single day see the truth her press conferences deny. Billions disappeared into a black hole of audits, lawsuits, and judicial scoldings. The suffering continued.
She didn’t create every problem in LA, but she accelerated, amplified, and entrenched the worst through denial, deflection, pathetic excuses, and disastrous priorities. The “worst thing” isn’t a single quote or decision; it’s the entire pattern of governance that told struggling residents their eyes were lying while she protected the system, the insiders, and the ideology that failed them.
That is Karen’s harsh record. This is what Angelenos are living through. Escape from LA?
(Eliot Cohen is a longtime civic advocate who has served on the Neighborhood Council, the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council, and the Board of Homeowners of Encino, where he was president of HOME for over seven years. A retired Wall Street executive with a 35-year career, Eliot brings a sharp eye to local governance. He critiques the bureaucratic missteps of City, County, and State officials. Eliot and his wife split their time between Los Angeles and Baja Norte, Mexico.)
